Thursday, April 03, 2014

Thu Apr 3rd Todays News

Neither attributed much to God, one was a genius, the other an Atheist known for creating rules for boxing which stand today. The Marquess of Queensberry had approached Wilde in 1894 and engaged in a yelling match over the Marquess' son, Lord Alfred (Bosie) Douglas. Queensberry confronted Wilde over his affair with his son, as described by Wilde "I do not say that you are it, but you look it, and pose at it, which is just as bad. And if I catch you and my son again in any public restaurant I will thrash you" to which Wilde responded: "I don't know what the Queensberry rules are, but the Oscar Wilde rule is to shoot on sight." Queensberry said Wilde had "shown him the white feather", meaning he had acted in a cowardly way. Even so, nothing much would have come of it, but Wilde was not satisfied. When Queensberry left his calling card marked "For Oscar Wilde, posing somdomite" [sic] Wilde had Queensberry arrested and charged with libel. That court case ruined Wilde, for to substantiate the claim, Wilde's private life was made public. His life was ruined. He was not persecuted for being gay, but for involving himself in a family dispute. The 1895 court case began on this day. Wilde was not religious, but no one could say he did not know God after he wrote The Happy Prince in 1888. He just wasn't well known.

"They were beaten, and they were starved as they marched. Those who fell were bayoneted. Some of those who fell were beheaded by Japanese officers who were practicing with their samurai swords from horseback. The Japanese culture at that time reflected the view that any warrior who surrendered had no honor; thus was not to be treated like a human being. Thus they were not committing crimes against human beings.[...] The Japanese soldiers at that time [...] felt they were dealing with subhumans and animals." These words from US Congressional rep Dana Rohrabachershows the brutality of the Bataan death march. An insult to Douglas MacArthur who had fled to prosecute the war from Australia. MacArthur chose a path of grace in not killing the Emperor at the end of the war. But on this day in 1946, the General (Masaharu Homma) responsible for this war crime was executed.

Happy birthday and many happy returns Mark Deskin. You birthday is the anniversary of the first of eleven unsolved murders from Whitechapel in the East End of London in 1888. I saw Star Trek and I think Kirk did it. Or Bones. Meanwhile, in my cockney mode, have you a song to give to a poor struggling artist?

Tim Blair – Thursday,April 03,2014 (2:10pm)

He noted that not one of TV’s top-50 rating shows last year aired on the ABC. This was a “fact conveniently lost on those who persist in depicting the ABC as an all-conquering, audience-snatching competitor”.

Tax-snatching, yes. Audience-snatching, not so much. Why are we paying all that money for something we don’t watch?

Tim Blair – Thursday,April 03,2014 (3:15am)

BHP Billiton has disclosed that the wages of some of
its coalmining workers are 50 per cent higher than equivalent employees
in the US, highlighting the mining giant’s “productivity and cost
challenge’’ in Australia.

Why does a tribunal
know better than the experts? And can it ensure that this would-be
doctor with an “extreme” fear of exams doesn’t also have a crippling
fear when it comes to finally applying her skills on a patient?

A medical student who suffers an “extreme” fear of exams has won the right to continue her degree after a tribunal ruled the university discriminated against her because of her mental health disability.
The woman, who has a borderline personality disorder and bipolar
disorder, had failed to sit written exams and avoided some clinical
assessments, particularly in paediatrics and surgery, because of
‘‘extreme anxiety in relation to sitting exams [and] performance
assessments’’.
The University of Newcastle declined to grant the woman an extension of
time to complete her Bachelor of Medicine after she had only completed
three-and-a-half years of course work in an eight-year period, the
maximum time allowed. The Dean of Medicine, Professor Ian Symonds, felt
there was a significant risk that she would not be able to safely work
as a doctor, even if she ultimately managed to graduate, because of her
psychiatric illnesses.
But the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal upheld the woman’s claim
that the university discriminated against her on the grounds of
disability and directed the university to grant her an 18-month
extension…
The Tribunal heard she ... had a panic attack while driving to an exam
and couldn’t bring herself to attend. Her psychiatrist, Dr Elizabeth
O’Brien, said the woman suffered “an intense fear of failure and the
shame of this at times paralyses her ability to apply herself
consistently to her studies’’.

Today we are launching the biggest ever crowd funding
campaign to make a TV movie about the serial killer, abortionist Dr.
Kermit Gosnell.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell is the most prolific serial killer in American
History, but almost no one knows who he is… Gosnell is serving several
life sentences but the media basically ignored his crimes and his trial.

REALLY, if journalists must terrify us about the end of the world, they shouldn’t be this damn lazy.

Take the ABC, which on Monday waved a vague arm in the general direction
of the planet: “Climate change will impact everything everywhere.”
Come on, guys. That’s not even trying.

Put some pep into it. If the world really is ending I want gory details.
I want screaming. I want children held up to the pitiless sky by
wailing mothers as fathers curse their fate.
But, no, even reporters of The Age, Australia’s most fervent global
warming newspaper, sounded listless this week as they promoted the
latest scare-report of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
“Irreversible and severe damage is to be inflicted on the planet from climate change,” plodded writer Tom Arup before he sighed.
“I know, this does feel familiar doesn’t it? You are a little bored, I can sense your eyes glazing over.”
But that’s odd. If you were told your children would soon die in a
ghastly fireball, you wouldn’t be yawning. Not if you believed it.
And death and doom is exactly what we’re told to expect. Take Professor
Helen Berry, a University of Canberra health academic who helped write
this IPCC report and told the Sydney Morning Herald:
(Read the full article here.)

Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson gave a cracker of a speech last night that should frighten every Australian. The easy times are over. The hard work starts now.
We are just not going to get as rich as we thought:

If labour productivity were to grow at its long-term
average, per capita incomes would grow on average over the decade ahead
by only 0.7 per cent per year, leading to real income per capita of
around $69,000 by 2024.
These rates would be much less than the 2.3 per cent growth Australians
are used to, which would otherwise yield a real income per capita of
around $82,000 by 2024. So there’s a gap of around $13,000 per person
between what Australians might hope for and expect, and what might come
to pass, on the basis of a reasonably benign scenario.

And we won’t have the budget surpluses we used to expect to pay for goodies and fund tax cuts:

Without policy change, the budget is projected to be in an underlying cash deficit for the next 10 years.

How did we get into this mess?
First, look at that massive spending spree the Rudd Government gave us and the Gillard Government didn’t rein back:

Even with the withdrawal of GFC-related stimulus
measures by the end of 2012-13, real spending increased significantly
more (40 per cent from 2002?03) than real GDP (34 per cent from
2002-03).

Second, check how many more people we’ll get who won’t work but will demand support:

....by 2050, there will be only 2.7 people of working
age to support each Australian aged 65 years or over, compared with 5
working age people per aged person in 2010, and 7.5 in 1970.

Third, say goodbye to top-dollar prices for what we dig out of the ground:

Fourth, we’re been slack in working smarter and more flexibly:

Australia’s multifactor productivity growth – the
best available measure of how efficiently we are using inputs – has seen
a marked deterioration since around the turn of the century. Indeed, it
is now negative.

Fifth, see how we demand more from the government, especially as we get older:

What is less well understood is that total
Commonwealth expenditure on health is anticipated to rise from $64.7
billion in nominal terms in 2013-14 to $74.6 billion in 2016-17, and to
$116 billion in 2023-24.
Similarly, our three main pension payments – the aged pension,
disability support pension and carers’ payment – grow at an annual rate
of 6 per cent per annum in nominal terms over the forward estimates,
adding around $13 billion to annual payments by 2016-17, and another $39
billion to annual payments by 2023-24.

Parkinson says he’s still a glass-half-full guy. Asia is growing and its
demand for food and services will soar. We are still rich. But let’s be
frank: anyone peddling big-spending promises is living in la-la land.
Anyone claiming we don’t need to make deep spending cuts is insulting
your intelligence and endangering our future.

His demeanour changed when I informed him that the SMH had evidence
of three calls from his phone being made to the brothel from his mobile
on that terrible day and that they could be traced from the central
coast, down the freeway and into the city of Sydney.
At this point he blinked, but batted on. It must have been stolen as
well, was the claim that followed, though not with the same confidence
as before.
I then delivered the coup de grace — and I am certain I was the only
person to ever see him run up the white flag. “At least the day got
better that night,” I told him, “because the bastard who stole the phone
gave it back to you.”
“How do you know that?” he asked. I told him that he had resumed normal calls himself that evening and it was all over.
“I can’t explain that,” were the words from this exchange that I can never forget.
The towel having been thrown in, he agreed to make sure his solicitor
would ring the SMH’s solicitor and seek to have both sides walk away.
This call was to happen on the following day.
In fact, the call was made six to eight weeks later, but it was not the
call I expected. The SMH’s solicitor was presented with a demand for
$20,000 and a front-page apology.

The United Nations’
nuclear safety body concludes a “most important health impact” of the
Fukushima emergency was not the radiation but the fear-mongering:

The major UN report on
the health impacts of the Fukushima accident concluded that any
radiation-induced effects would be too small to identify. People were
well protected and received “low or very low” radiation doses.
The latest report on the accident comes from the United Nations
Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) ...
Overall, people in Fukushima are expected on average to receive less
than 10 mSv due to the accident over their whole lifetime, said UNSCEAR,
comparing this to the 170 mSv lifetime dose from natural background
radiation that people in Japan typically receive.
Health issues from radiation only become apparent in people known to
have received 100 mSv or more in a short space of time. This criteria
does apply to a group of 160 plant workers, who are to be monitored in
the long term.
Despite the evacuation’s success in minimizing radiation exposure to a level where, ”No
discernible increased incidence of radiation-related health effects are
expected among exposed members of the public or their descendants,”
the mass movement of people had repercussions of its own, including the
deaths of some vulnerable people and social effects of the relocation.
UNSCEAR said, “The most important health effect is on mental and social
well-being, related to the enormous impact of the earthquake, tsunami
and nuclear accident, and the fear and stigma related to the perceived
risk of exposure to radiation.”

As I wrote and said last week, the argument is not between those who want more free speech and those who want less racism.
It is between those who trust Australians and those who don’t. Those who
think we are basically decent and can be trusted with free speech and
those who think we’re too racist for such freedom.
John Howard puts much the same case:

FORMER prime minister John Howard will tell a gala dinner celebrating
the Liberal Party’s 70th anniversary tonight that he strongly supports
proposed changes to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act…

Above all, Abbott was elected because he was neither Kevin Rudd nor
Julia Gillard. Yet here he is, six months later, one sixth of his way
into his first term, with time slipping away like the sands in an
hourglass, as one famous soapie warns, acting remarkably like them…
Rudd’s dysfunction, his refusal to consult beyond his coterie, followed
by Gillard’s failure to comprehend the impact of her decisions,
exacerbated by her refusal to learn from her mistakes, cost Labor
dearly. The mystery is why Abbott feels compelled to copy them.
He was not elected Prime Minister to indulge his whims and fancies. If
anyone’s whims or fancies warrant humouring, it’s the voters’ and there
is not a scintilla of evidence to show they were clamouring for gongs.
What makes Abbott’s revival of knighthoods and dameships worse, what
makes it even more self-indulgent, is he knew if he had flagged it
publicly, or had taken it to his party room or cabinet, he would have
been talked or laughed out of it.

Happy to raise the GST - provided less efficient taxes go. But let’s not tackle wild spending just with big tax takes:

Treasury
boss Martin Parkinson says the goods and services tax will have to be
boosted or broadened if the budget is to have any hope of returning to
surplus.
Addressing the Sydney Institute on Wednesday, Dr Parkinson detailed a
bleak budget outlook in which there would be no return to surplus in a
decade, even if “bracket creep” through wage inflation was allowed to
push up the average tax rate on full-time workers from 23 to 28 per
cent.
Sustaining such an increase was “unlikely to be politically feasible”, he said.
It was also “hardly likely to be economically desirable” as it would turn Australians away from work…
Dr Parkinson said after years in which Australia’s real income per head
had grown by 2.3 per cent a year, it was now set to scarcely grow at all
for a decade.
That meant that by 2024, real income per head would be $69,000, much
less than the $82,000 per head Australians would have come to expect…
“What is less well understood is that total Commonwealth expenditure on
health is anticipated to rise from $64.7 billion in nominal terms to
$116 billion in 2023-24.”
“Similarly, our three main pension payments – the aged pension,
disability support pension and carers’ payment – grow at an annual rate
of 6 per cent per annum in nominal terms over the forward estimates,
adding around $13 billion to annual payments by 2016-17, and another $39
billion by 2023-24.”

An open response to Michael Gawenda, and any Jewish paper is free to reproduce it.
Michael,
Your column today is a grotesque misrepresentation of me and of my argument with Jewish leaders supporting the Racial Discrimination Act.

To claim I simply presented an IOU to the Jewish community in return for
services rendered – services I could now withdraw in a pique – is not
only untrue but vicious.

May I suggest your cartoonish antipathy towards me has made you write something unfair?

I was accused in court by a Jewish barrister before a Jewish judge of
sharing the thinking of the Nazis in drawing up the Nuremberg race laws,
which, the barrister didn’t need to add yet did, led to the Holocaust.

This was not simply manifestly untrue and, in the circumstances, highly
inflammatory. It was an insult so vile that I am enraged again simply
to repeat it to you.

What so deeply disappointed me is that half a dozen Jewish leaders I knew - and who knew what I’d done for the community and therefore knew the slur to be false
- privately assured me variously that Merkel’s comments were a
disgrace, the law had been misapplied or the law was too broad in scope,
if this case was the consequence.

Yet not one of those leaders, until Mark this year, publicly defended me
against one of the most vile smears you could possibly dream up in this
kind of debate. Not one, until Mark, publicly acknowledged that mine
was not the kind of case this law should have applied to.

So why this long silence, only briefly broken? For the reason, I
believe, that it was felt more important by those leaders to maintain
the myth that the law was perfect than to acknowledge an injustice was
done and my reputation unfairly and vilely trashed as a consequence.

This is the source of my disappointment. I also pointed out the danger
in this for the Jewish community, that in allowing this trashing of me
they were also allowing the marginalising of one of their most
dependable media supporters, in a country with distressingly few of
them.

All this is on the public record, and I cannot believe that in writing
about this issue you could have overlooked the argument I actually put.
Here is just one iteration of it, from just last December:

- Several prominent Jewish spokesmen had privately told me they
disagreed with the verdict and even the breadth of the Racial
Discrimination Act, if used to silence even me, yet not one of those
spokesmen had ever said so publicly. It was as if though by conceding an
injustice, they risked losing a law they thought useful. I was, in my
phrase, “collateral damage”.
- Not a single Jewish spokesman had publicly condemned Ron Merkel QC for
telling the Jewish judge in my case that my thinking in the article was
of the kind that the Nazis had in drawing up the Nuremberg race laws,
(Danny Lamm, however, did offer to speak on my behalf.) I thought this
vile slur, explosive in the context of my case, was not just a gross
misuse of the victims of the Holocaust, but was false and known to be
false by the many members of the Jewish community, who knew me to be one
of the most prominent media defenders of Israel and the Jewish
community generally. It seemed to me, again, that my reputation was
collateral damage in a fight to preserve (unjust) laws.
- I was alarmed that my personal reputation was further being attacked
by people who should know better. One very prominent Jewish leader
(certainly not Leibler) had even suggested I believed in the “Jewish
conspiracy”. I warned that phrasing the debate over the RDA as between
racists and non-racists was not just false and offensive, but would
damage the standing of someone many Jews felt was useful in defending
them publicly.
- These laws would eventually be turned against Jews and those who criticised Islam.

You could have quoted my real position. Instead, you substituted your
own version: falsely claiming that because I’d scratched Jewish backs, I
felt Jews should scratch mine, particularly if they wanted more
favours:

For a start, this suggests that Bolt indeed sees himself as
powerful, able to ‘do things’ for the Jews and, it must be assumed, for
others who would benefit mightily from his support. In return, he
expects support when he gets into a spot of bother. This is the way
players in politics sometimes operate but not, I would hope, someone who
calls himself a journalist

Needless to say, your version is not just false and completely at odds
with what I’ve written and said privately to several leaders, including
Danny Lamm, Yuval Rotem and Colin Rubenstein. It is also extremely
offensive, crude and untrue – a play to a racist stereotype of the
unreliable goy, a secret anti-Semite, after all, despite all that
smiling and backclapping:

If there were a shred of truth to such a spiteful reading you might
then be able to go on to note how I’d switched positions on issues
involving Israel and attacked what I’d once supported. I warrant you
could not find a single such case, or a single case of my failing to
speak up as I used to. I would draw your attention to, for instance, my
blog comments on the discussion on Q&A only last Monday of Pamela
Geller’s signs, or my criticism on The Bolt Report last Sunday of the
BDS protests.

I do not need favours from anyone to speak up for Israel as I have done,
and for you to now imply I am such a man is shameful. Shameful and
very, very wrong.

A real journalist would acknowledge this mistake – this gross injustice - and apologise.

===In Vietnamese, jeem means bird, also means a rude term for a private part.. went to a family gathering, two female cousins were talking, one not very good with her English says "do you do the Jeem thing often" The other's face felt looked very awkward at that point and she stuttered, w what do you mean?" "I mean burn those calories and get the blood pumping, you know"? The awkward one still unsure.. "OK, how would you do that?" "Exercise bike, treadmill." "Oh LOL, I thought you meant if I own a bird,"
===

Except for the destruction of the Labor Party, with the help of her Marxist comrades, it is difficult to find anything Gillard has done well.

It is indeed bizarre that those who keep her in office now were the very same people she helped to steal over a million dollars from in the 90s.Ralph Blewitt, Bob Kernohan and myself have been told to shut our traps by the Victorian Fraud Squad for fear of compromising their investigations.

We have, but the ten part series on Gillard’s criminal behaviour is still available on the pickeringpost.com

By suppressing information, refusing to prefer charges and obstructing Fraud Squad investigations, the AWU (with the help of the corrupt NSW Right) has kept their girl performing dutifully in the top spot.

But a macro oversight of Labor indicates an imminent split. Martin Ferguson, Rob McClelland and Simon Crean are among true blue Labor men with clout.

They won’t lie down admonished, licking their wounds, rueing what should have been.

There is a widening fissure running through the heart of Labor... Gillard and her vile intentions are being openly attacked from within.

Crean knew of the avaricious intention to raid Super Funds and spoke up. Ferguson knew of the class war and mining tax debacle and spoke up. McClelland knew of Gillard’s criminal past and spoke up. Kim Carr knew of an impending Royal Commission into unions and spoke up.

The Labor Party is crippled and can no longer fill its honorable role. It has experimented with Gillard’s Communist agenda and it has failed spectacularly.

Those responsible, the incompetent dregs who now sit with Gillard on the front bench, will soon be sent to the sin bin to learn how to play by the rules.

The true Labor Party now sits behind Gillard and they will fight with tenacity to regain their beloved Party and they will inter her in the process.

The AWU’s Paul Howes, a vacuous illiterate Trotskyite, will be entombed with Bill Ludwig as distant memories of utter failures.

Their corrupt NSW friends who colluded with them to enthrone Gillard will be in cells adjacent to O’bied.

If anyone doubts how Gillard cares for our once great country, consider this:• $11mil gifted to a Hugh Jackman film.• $23 mil gifted to a version of 20,000 Leagues under the Sea.• $400 mil to promote women’s interests in the Pacific.• $500 mil gifted to Indonesian school projects.• $1.3 billion in bribes to three Independents.• $10 billion gifted to the Greens, etc etc.

There is much, much more but compare that profligacy to her consideration for the distraught victims of the Queensland floods... a gift of one million dollars.

And the flood previous? A further tax (a levy). How philanthropic of her.

The dark Communist underworld of a prettified Gillard will soon slink back to its university base to plan its next infiltration of the Labor Party.

Only then will true blue Labor men of honor re-emerge as a legitimate Opposition.

And God knows we will need one.
===Ever wondered what that patch means on your Anzac's arm or the medal pinned to their chest? Do you want to identify a souvenir sent home or the uniform they wear in your family photos? Ask your questions of the Australian War Memorial in our Expert Q&A on Thursday, 4th April at 8:30pm AEDT.

Are you busy Thursday and can't make the Q&A session? Ask your questions now in a comment below. Or join us on this page with your questions on Thursday for our 4 experts from the AWM Military Heraldry and Technology team.

Share your photos on our wall, with your questions or email them to contribute@insidehistory.com.au

Read more about the AWM experts ::http://ow.ly/jEOpV
===
===Chess .. everybody wins .. we all know who made the first move
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===Why did Sagan do it?
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===And of course, a nice little surprise today - a photo I took of Alan La from @invincibleworldwide last year is on the front page of Fairfield Advance! This time, they credited me. :,) #surprises #respectphotogs #photolife
==="Enjoy these final moments of peace." Star Trek Into Darkness releases on May 9th starringZachary Quinto
===Designed for the U.S. Marine Corps, the Dragon Eye remote-controlled plane is now helping scientists track poisonous volcanic gas.http://oak.ctx.ly/r/3js0
===Myself and hundreds of others have finally finished the Eight Week Fitness Challenge...and we sure didn't need a nanny state government regulator to tell us to do it! Read more in this week's blog: http://www.corybernardi.com/2013/04/a-personal-commitment-to-change.html
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===I wonder if they taste any good ?

Tim Blair – Wednesday,April 03,2013 (10:31am)

As a member of cabinet, Craig Emerson is paid more than $320,000. He’ll retire on a mighty pension. Yet he seems to have something against the fabulously wealthy:

What I said in fact is that it is worthwhile having a debate about the fact that fabulously wealthy people are able to get an advantage of paying a 15 per cent tax whereas everyday Australians on ordinary wages, pay 30 per cent or more.

I didn’t set a dividing line. I’m simply referring to the fact that there are fabulously wealthy people in Australia.

Now if we want to have a debate with the Liberal Party as to whether there are or are notfabulously wealthy people, I’m happy to have that.

This is what I say about fabulously wealthy people, god bless their little cotton socks.

The man seems unhinged. Former Reserve Bank board member Warwick McKibbin detects desperation: “This is a government that has lost the plot. They are just floundering around trying to come up with a policy that will give them a bounce in the opinion polls.”

“Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. On the way, he took the Twelve aside and said to them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”” -Matthew 20: 17-19

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Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon

Morning

He had never been slow of speech when he could bless the sons of men, but he would not say a single word for himself. "Never man spake like this man," and never man was silent like him. Was this singular silence the index of his perfect self-sacrifice? Did it show that he would not utter a word to stay the slaughter of his sacred person, which he had dedicated as an offering for us? Had he so entirely surrendered himself that he would not interfere in his own behalf, even in the minutest degree, but be bound and slain an unstruggling, uncomplaining victim? Was this silence a type of the defencelessness of sin? Nothing can be said in palliation or excuse of human guilt; and, therefore, he who bore its whole weight stood speechless before his judge. Is not patient silence the best reply to a gainsaying world? Calm endurance answers some questions infinitely more conclusively than the loftiest eloquence. The best apologists for Christianity in the early days were its martyrs. The anvil breaks a host of hammers by quietly bearing their blows. Did not the silent Lamb of God furnish us with a grand example of wisdom? Where every word was occasion for new blasphemy, it was the line of duty to afford no fuel for the flame of sin. The ambiguous and the false, the unworthy and mean, will ere long overthrow and confute themselves, and therefore the true can afford to be quiet, and finds silence to be its wisdom. Evidently our Lord, by his silence, furnished a remarkable fulfilment of prophecy. A long defence of himself would have been contrary to Isaiah's prediction: "He is led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth." By his quiet he conclusively proved himself to be the true Lamb of God. As such we salute him this morning. Be with us, Jesus, and in the silence of our heart, let us hear the voice of thy love.

Evening

"He shall see his seed; he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand."Isaiah 53:10

Plead for the speedy fulfilment of this promise, all ye who love the Lord. It is easy work to pray when we are grounded and bottomed, as to our desires, upon God's own promise. How can he that gave the word refuse to keep it? Immutable veracity cannot demean itself by a lie, and eternal faithfulness cannot degrade itself by neglect. God must bless his Son, his covenant binds him to it. That which the Spirit prompts us to ask for Jesus, is that which God decrees to give him. Whenever you are praying for the kingdom of Christ, let your eyes behold the dawning of the blessed day which draweth near, when the Crucified shall receive his coronation in the place where men rejected him. Courage, you that prayerfully work and toil for Christ with success of the very smallest kind, it shall not be so always; better times are before you. Your eyes cannot see the blissful future: borrow the telescope of faith; wipe the misty breath of your doubts from the glass; look through it and behold the coming glory. Reader, let us ask, do you make this your constant prayer? Remember that the same Christ who tells us to say, "Give us this day our daily bread," had first given us this petition, "Hallowed be thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." Let not your prayers be all concerning your own sins, your own wants, your own imperfections, your own trials, but let them climb the starry ladder, and get up to Christ himself, and then, as you draw nigh to the blood-sprinkled mercy-seat, offer this prayer continually, "Lord, extend the kingdom of thy dear Son." Such a petition, fervently presented, will elevate the spirit of all your devotions. Mind that you prove the sincerity of your prayer by labouring to promote the Lord's glory.

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Today's reading: Judges 16-18, Luke 7:1-30 (NIV)

Samson and Delilah

1 One day Samson went to Gaza, where he saw a prostitute. He went in to spend the night with her. 2 The people of Gaza were told, "Samson is here!" So they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the city gate. They made no move during the night, saying, "At dawn we'll kill him."

3 But Samson lay there only until the middle of the night. Then he got up and took hold of the doors of the city gate, together with the two posts, and tore them loose, bar and all. He lifted them to his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that faces Hebron....

The Faith of the Centurion

1 When Jesus had finished saying all this to the people who were listening, he entered Capernaum. 2 There a centurion's servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. 3 The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. 4 When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, "This man deserves to have you do this, 5 because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue." 6 So Jesus went with them.

He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: "Lord, don't trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. 7 That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. 8 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."

9 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, "I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel." 10 Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well....

Jesus Sends Out the Seventy-Two

1 After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. 2He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. 4 Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road.

5 "When you enter a house, first say, 'Peace to this house.' 6If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. 7 Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.

8 "When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. 9 Heal the sick who are there and tell them, 'The kingdom of God has come near to you....'

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About Me

I'm author of History in a Year by the Conservative Voice aka History of the World in a Year by the Conservative Voice.

I'm the Conservative Voice.

I'm looking to make contact with those who might use my skill.

I have an m-audio mobile pre amp fed by the audiotechnica 2041sp condensor mic pack. Prior to 15/4/06, I'd used a Shure sm-58 that required a nuclear blast to register a sound or the internal mic of my aged imac, which has a penchance to recording my breathing. I also used a Griffin itrip, until the community convinced me it was not hiding my talent as well as the other mics.

I am a Writer and an occasional Math Teacher (Sir, what's the occasion?). I like to sing, having no instrumental talent (cannot even clap in time, and yes, I'm aware singing badly IS obnoxious).

I have performed the finale to Les Miserables before an audience of 500. I have also sung before a similar audience (students, parents) renditions of 'I Will' (Beatles), 'Mr Cairo' (Jon Vangelis) and 'I am Australian' (Seekers). Now I seek another profession because the audience hates me ..